3 Surprising Things Smart Businesses Outsource

This is a guest post by Doug Pelton.

Outsourcing has been completely accepted by small businesses for tasks such as accounting, window washing and logo design forever. It’s silly to even think about a restaurateur doing payroll just as it’s silly to think about a payroll company cooking all its own food for an annual dinner.

But you can’t outsource your personality, right?

Well, of course not, but what about your online personality? You might be able to.

It’s something that you may not have thought of, particularly if you’re a die-hard business owner chained to a computer, trying not to nod off as you create equally drowsy content for all your social media outlets.

If you are doing that, it sounds like you’ve embraced the DIY mantra, a legacy notion guaranteed to cause pain and suffering to your brand in the long term.

Granted, you’ve got a lot of good ideas, but you are afraid no one else can execute the way you do, right? I mean, not only are you possessed with inspiration and material that matters, but you also have all six hands controlling every aspect of your social media campaign…not to mention overseeing your day-to-day operations.

Let’s face it. Those who outsource are realizing a host of benefits across all of their social media platforms: their channels stream with updated material and fresh content, they are current and in-the-know all while sending conversion rates up into the wild-blue yonder, …not into the wilderness.

In the ever evolving new media platforms, the wilderness is a lonely place to be, if you’re not moving quickly in the marketplace—or leveraging available resources in the molten-hot world of social media.

If you are willing to let go a little bit and maybe spend a bit more time on your core business and less on your social media channels, take a gander at the Golden Eggs laid by these social media vendors:

‘BUDDY MEDIA’ ADDS EXTRA DIMENSION TO FACEBOOK PAGES

At first glance, who would even think of tinkering with the likes of Facebook to make it an even better outlet–really, now, just how much better can great be?

Well, take a breath, because decision makers around the globe are handing over the management of their social media to Michael Lazerow’s genius platform: ‘Buddy Media,’ a wonky name for a social media campaign firm that has raised over $90-million in venture funds just in the past five years AND was recently acquired by Salesforce for $689 million.

BuddyMedia doesn’t just spruce up your FB pages, it brings a dimension of ongoing interaction with customers to help build and maintain relationships…and did I say ‘relevant’ with messaging or gaming campaigns out of the chutes daily if that’s what you’re looking for? It’s all there. It will cost you, but the payoff is there if social media proof has anything to do with your bottom line.

THE SHORT, HAPPY LIFE OF YOUR TWEETS: TIME FOR TWYLAH

Admit it, tweets, regardless of how darn informative the content behind the links can be, don’t really tell your whole story at a glance; sure, you always get your tweet summary presented as a single Twitter page…

But, how in the world can anyone get down-and-dirty creative with a trail of tweets that max out at 140-characters, carrying all that extra baggage of hashtags and chopped up URLs?

Twylah is a great way for websites, products, venues, and individuals to create one page that not only sums up what they’re all about but is also search engine optimized and brings your message into focus.

Another good reason to outsource your tweets with this free, cloud-based tool: it aggregates your flow of tweets, bio and interests onto magazine-like pages with top-of-page tabs and beautiful graphics throughout; all, to better attract Google’s crawler in a bid to keep your brand ‘top-of-the-mind’ in this post-Panda era.

A WAY TO GET TIMELY CONTENT FOR YOUR BLOG: ‘BLOGMUTT’

Okay, does it really pay to give up writing your own company blog? You’ve heard all the reasons before, including the one about allocating your time better with things you should be doing…like making sure your income stream doesn’t dry up.

That said, it’s terrific when you have solid ideas–most of the time–on how you want your company message crafted, and you do a pretty decent job–most of the time–in keeping your blogs freshened up.

But within the BlogMutt compound, roams a proven pack of writers drooling to connect with your business, website links and keywords to get a weekly post for $79 per month.

(Full disclosure, we’re partial to this one because Scott is the CEO and this post was written by one of the Blogmutt pack of writers. Woof.)

Control? You still have it with BlogMutt through its intuitive platform that gives you the ultimate decision on what you want posted…and when you want it to appear.

That’s the power of outsourcing your blog in a social media world where you can’t afford the past mistakes of trying to fool Mother Google with “key word stuffing and link schemes.”

As the world of social media plays an ever-increasing role in business growth, brand development, and our personal lives, outsourcing some of our day-to-day with companies like these seems natural.

So, keep an open mind to what might very well be a new way of thinking for you, and embrace ‘outsourcing’ as not only the smart thing to do, but also the only way to keep your brand relevant.

This post was written by Blogmutt writer Doug Pelton with some editing by Scott Yates, CEO of Blogmutt, a blog writing service. Scott will do his best to engage with you in the comments below.

Photo provided by BigStock.